The sky is fuchsia with sunset. We marvel at the clouds. I look over at him. His eyes are filled with tears.

"The best guide in life is strength,” said Swami Vivekananda. “Discard everything that weakens you, have nothing to do with it.” Instead, as you evaluate each person and situation that comes before you, ask yourself: “Will this feed my vitality or will it not?"

I’ve always believed in the power of reinvention; a theory that none of us is ever so trapped we can’t stand up and make our lives anew. If you’ve got itchy feet, a loss of hope, or are just fed up with the humdrum hootchie-koo of daily life, get a copy of Finnegans Wake and a Greyhound bus ticket and call me in the morning.

But fear breeds paralysis. Case studies (still under observation):

The woman slumped in her barstool, looking too young to already be so old. A glass of vodka sat in front of her. “I miss him so much,” she said. Her haunted face crumpled. Where was her bus ticket?

Or the man who in confidence conveyed how trapped he feels; how he hates his life but feels powerless to change it. Where’s his outlaw bible?

"Phall if you but will," James Joyce tells us, "rise you must.”

“Can’t you feel this?” he asks, pulling me back from all this thinking.

“Of course I can.” My belly burns. My whole body is alive. Every cell is singing.